CATCH FIRE › Blog archives

March 2010

1 + 1 = 1: A Tribute To Breyer P-Orridge

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and her wife Lady Jaye were one of the few pandrogynist couples in the world, actually they are sort of the inventor of what is called Pandrogeny. As a (male) singer and musician of the British band Throbbing Gristle as well as the founder of Psychic TV Genesis has always been interested in the transformations of the body and the possibilities these transformations can open up in terms of rethinking gender identity and finding new concepts of what love means. Genesis and Lady Jaye perceived their love as so strong that the both of them were just parts of one shared entity, a “pandrogynist” person called “Breyer P-Orridge”. This is why through several surgeries they started to change their bodies in a way that they would more and more resemble each other. Sadly Lady Jay Breyer P-Orridge died of a heart failure in 2007, but recently several film projects have been released that in different ways deal with the couple’s relationship – one of them is Jake’s Yuzna’s awesome film “Open” that won a special Teddy award at this year’s Berlinale (click here for the Berlinale info sheet), another second one is a documentary called “The Ballade Of Lady Jay” by filmmaker Marie Losier (trailer below) who also shot the brilliant great video to “Have Mercy” by Psychic TV. More about Genesis P-Orridge and the concept of Pandrogeny on her website. Jake Yuzna will soon be part II of the CATCH FIRE interviews series – as soon as I have completely transcripted the interview. I also posted a clip of another documentary about the couple produced by Metropolis Web TV.

UPDATE 03/13/10: Seems like Marie Losier hasn’t finished her film yet. On Genesis’ site she’s letting people know that she’s searching for both and editor and a sound engineer and asks for donations to finish the movie.

Posted by Hanno ON March 5, 2010 | CATEGORY: Music, Queer Politics | TAGS: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Queer Icons, Throbbing Gristle, Trans Identity, Tributes | Comments (0)

Jonathan Boulet – North To South East To You

Thanks, Knut.

Posted by Hanno ON March 5, 2010 | CATEGORY: Music | | Comments (0)

Good Blogs: The K48 Bullet

The K48 Bullet is a blog run by Scott Hug, an artist and curator from New York who is not only of the people responsible for the Straight To Hell zine, but also publishes an art magazine called K48 and is the founder of a the loose artist collective with the same name. The blog is one of these ones you can’t stop scrolling yourself through once you’ve started, it’s a pretty cool mixture of all sorts of web findings, exhibition views, pictures of fashion items and works of contemporary artists and it also features some interviews with different artists here and then.

http://thek48bullet.blogspot.com/

Posted by Hanno ON March 4, 2010 | CATEGORY: Web | TAGS: Fine Arts, Good Blogs, New York, Zine Culture | Comments (0)

The Mic Shot x 2

Took me a while to realize that these two belong together:

Grace Jones: “Island Live”

Hard Ton: “Selfish E.P.”

Posted by Hanno ON March 4, 2010 | CATEGORY: Music | TAGS: Drag, Grace Jones, Hard Ton, x2 | Comments (0)

Short Cut: Josh McNey

Josh McNey is a photographer from New York who grew up in California and has spent several years in the United States Marine Corps. Most of his pictures deal with masculinity and the ways it is constructed, the best example may be his series of wrestlers I already recommended last year. On a blog which is part on his website he regularly publishes pictures of new shootings, mostly portraits like the two ones I posted below showing a guy called Christopher. I just found them on The Summer Diary Project. Click here for McNey’s website, here for his blog and here for an interview with him published on POSI+TIVE Magazine.

Posted by Hanno ON March 3, 2010 | CATEGORY: Guys, Photography | TAGS: Guys, New York, Portrait Pics, Wrestling | Comments (0)

Thierry Schaffauser: Time For Porn Stars To Self-Organise

“I wish us porn actors were able to organise ourselves collectively and produce our own films. We could not only film each other, but have control over our own images and improve the quality of our work, because we could spend more and better time doing it. We would be more interested in creating a beautiful and arousing film, rather than just earning money. The workers could share the revenues between ourselves and perhaps porn could be recognised at last as what it should be – an art.” Thierry Schaffauser, president of the GMB/IUSW on working conditions and unsafe sexual practice in gay porn. His complete comment on guardian.co.uk. Thanks, Tim.

Posted by Hanno ON March 3, 2010 | CATEGORY: Queer Politics | TAGS: Notes On Bareback, Porn | Comments (0)

Chain Reaction x 2: OK Go – This Too Shall Pass / Fischli & Weiss – The Way Things Go

Sorry for the overkill of music videos today, but this is just too fucking good to wait with posting it. It is based on a video called “Der Lauf der Dinge” (The Way Things Go) by artist duo Fischli & Weiss. I’ve posted the first part of it below. Thanks, Gunnar.

Posted by Hanno ON March 2, 2010 | CATEGORY: Music | TAGS: Fine Arts | Comments (0)

Music Ticker (Video Edition): Owen Pallett, Gus Gus, Caribou, Toro Y Moi, Mia Doi Todd/Michel Gondry, Grindin

+++ Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes Off His Shirt (via Pitchfork) +++

Expand…

Posted by Hanno ON March 2, 2010 | CATEGORY: Music | TAGS: Caribou, Music Ticker, Owen Pallett, Toro Y Moi | Comments (0)

/// Warped Special: Honcho Magazine Covers 1985-1995 ///

For part I (1997-1985) click here.

Posted by Hanno ON March 1, 2010 | CATEGORY: Guys | TAGS: Eighties, Furry, Nineties, Themed Galleries, Warped | Comments (0)

Interviews: Olof Dreijer (The Knife), Mt. Sims and Planningtorock On “Tomorrow, In A Year”

Olof Dreijer of The Knife, Matthew Sims aka Mt. Sims and Janine Rostron aka Planningtorock have worked together on the soundtrack of “Tomorrow, In A Year”, an opera about Charles Darwin and his evolution theory which was brought on stage by the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma (I already posted a clip of the piece here). As far as I know the soundtrack is going to be released tomorrow and can be prelistened to on The Knife’s webpage.

You wanted all journalists that are going to interview today to read the transcript of your roundtable conversation about the way this whole project started and on what ideas your soundtrack to Hotel Pro Forma’s Darwin opera is based. But something that still isn’t really clear to me is how you actually interacted with the other ones involved in the project. For example: At what stage was the stage performance when they asked you to make the music?

Olof Dreijer: It started the same for all people involved in the project. In the beginning Hotel Pro Forma gave us a loose framework for the piece. It was a long list of literature and they also told us that the play was supposed to feature three singers, six dancers and that it should focuse on biology and geology. We also did some research by going to museums wit them, we went to the Nature history museum and the geology museum for example.